1. Technical Field
Several aspects of the present invention relate to an optical element, a liquid crystal device, an electronic apparatus, an optical element manufacturing method, and a liquid crystal device manufacturing method.
2. Related Art
A wire grid polarization element is known as one of optical elements having a polarization-separation function. This element is an element having a number of conductive wires arranged at a pitch smaller than the wavelength of light. Also, this element has the property of reflecting components having a polarization axis parallel to the wires among components of incident light and transmitting components having a polarization axis perpendicular to the wires thereamong.
On the other hand, an aluminum scattering plate having bumps and dips with a height of, e.g., approximately 1 μm on a surface thereof is known as a means for reflecting and diffusing incident light. If a wire grid polarization element is formed on the surface of an aluminum scattering plate, the aluminum scattering plate obtains a polarization-separation function as well as a reflection light-scattering function (see JP-T-2002-520677).
However, it is difficult to form such an optical element for the following reasons. That is, as shown in FIG. 21, if a resist 34 is applied onto a surface of an aluminum scattering plate 97 formed on a base 96 so as to form a wire grid polarization element by photolithography, the resist 34 comes to have uneven thicknesses due to bumps and dips on the surface of the aluminum scattering plate 97. This is a problem in that a part of the resist 34 is insufficiently exposed or developed and thus wires are formed only on a part of the aluminum scattering plate 97. Also, if laser interference exposure is performed, slopes shown by an area B in FIG. 21 fail to be illuminated with the interference beams. This is a problem in that the area B is inadequately exposed and thus no wires are formed in the area B.